


Redesign the Future

by fingalsanteater



Series: Face Turn and Reconcile [1]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5861530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingalsanteater/pseuds/fingalsanteater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth is sure Dean and Roman will turn on each other eventually. It's just a fact that you can't have friends when you're the one on top.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redesign the Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mithen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/gifts).



> This is canon compliant up to the Royal Rumble 2016.

Nine months is a long time. Seth feels every second of it. Being away from the thing he loves makes it harder, makes time seem more like cold molasses, slow and sticky. He sits and watches others do what he should be doing and misses the sound and energy of a live crowd so acutely that he hears them roaring in his dreams. They chant "You sold out," and, this time, he responds with "I know."

He always felt he was so right in his decisions, no matter the cost to others, because he alone had to make the most of his life. And then he watches Roman win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

Dean has just lost the match, lost the belt to Roman, and he still wraps his arm around Roman and mouths something that looks like congratulations and kisses him right on the top of his wet, sweaty mess of hair.

Watching them wrestle for the championship, a championship he still considers his, hollows him out. Seeing Dean with Roman fills him back up. He turns the TV off before the pay-per-view is over, before the confetti falls, and throws the remote across the room, hearing it crash to the floor somewhere in the dark. He'll regret having to hobble around on crutches trying to find the pieces later. Now though, he's burning up and his heart is thumping so hard he can hear it in his ears, and he doesn't know why.

He thinks it's just seeing Roman with his belt. Sometimes Seth lays in bed, eyes closed to the dark, with something heavy and flat across his stomach and imagines he was never injured. It's pathetic, he knows it. He would've never been ready to relinquish the title, especially not to Roman, but he didn't even lose it properly. (He didn't even win it properly, either, a small voice says. He squashes it.)

His body betrayed him, he thinks bitterly. In his weakest moments, he can't deny it is fitting in a cruel, karmic way. He knows betrayal so well. It's like bad luck cashed in on him, ripping his title from his hands and handing it off to the person he pinned to claim it in the first place.

That's not it, though. Not completely.

It takes him minutes of seething in the dark to figure out the real reason he's so worked up. It's not just Roman with his belt - it's Dean too. It's them together with the title he sacrificed so much for. He wonders, if he'd never hit either of them with a chair, if he'd continued to deny the Authority with them at his side and somehow still managed to win the belt, would they have supported him? Could he have continued calling them his brothers all this time?

No. He shakes his head and subdues the thought before regret really starts to kick in. When you've got the top prize, you don't get to have friends, especially friends among those who would want to take it from you. One day soon, Roman and Dean will turn on each other. There's no way they can continue their friendship now that Roman has the championship.

Seth staggers to his feet, fumbling with his crutches. He wishes he could run, wishes he could burn off some of this energy and anger, but his knee prevents him. He goes to bed instead.

Seth is dreaming about Roman winning the championship like he's watching a replay of the match. Dean presses his mouth against dark hair and says, "You deserve it." But it's not Roman he's saying this to, it's Seth himself. Dean's arm is wrapped around Seth's shoulders and Seth leans into him and says, "Thanks, brother." When he finally wakes, his chest is tight and warm, and he coughs, trying to dislodge the strange, fuzzy feeling that overtook him in his sleep.

Checking his neglected phone zaps the feeling out of him, as he has about twenty texts from Jamie and Joey and Big E (he thinks - the contact name has been changed to a string of various smiley face emojis) ranging from "Man, can you believe Sheamus! That Brogue Kick is amazing!" to "I CANT BELIEVE REIGNS DID THAT TO THE BOSS. HES GONNA PAY!!!" to "REIGNS IS B O O T Y!" He checks dirt sheets with trepidation and discovers, in his haste to avoid Roman's celebration, he missed Sheamus cashing in and claiming the belt. He also missed Roman spearing Hunter through the canvas.

Stephanie and Hunter are going to eat Roman alive on Raw.

His hands are shaking and he rests his phone on his stomach. Well, Roman brought it on himself. If Roman would have just taken Hunter's offer to begin with, like Seth himself did, then he would've held the title longer than five minutes. He can't imagine Roman ever taking Hunter's hand, though. He's proud of his stubbornness and refusal to cooperate, same as Dean. Seth was the only one who would do what it took to be something bigger than their little band of brothers.

* * *

He manages to avoid Roman, once again WWE World Heavyweight Champion (and Seth tries not to let the fact that Roman is now a two-time champ sting) and Dean backstage at the Slammy's, though he does get suckered into watching Dean's steel cage match with Sheamus. It's hard to escape Xavier, Big E and Kofi, all of whom have been hanging around him most of the night. It's probably at the insistence of Jamie and Joey, who are off supporting Stephanie in Hunter's absence.

"Okay, that was pretty good," Kofi says over Xavier and E's screaming when the chair Roman throws in the cage bounces upright and pops open. Seth watches the way Dean, still inside the cage, looks toward Roman, crawls toward him desperately even though steel separates them, and Seth suddenly is so lonely, even within a small room with these three guys who are larger and louder than life.

Seth doesn't get it. He keeps thinking one of these days Dean's going to be the one to follow in his footsteps and hit Roman in the back with a steel chair, but Dean continues to embrace Roman like he doesn't mind playing second fiddle. Seth's matches with Dean earlier in the year weren't just about revenge, they were about the ownership of the belt too. He knows Dean wants it, so why is he okay with Roman being champion? He should be challenging Roman to a rematch, not fighting Roman's rivals for him.

Would Dean have fought this hard for him if he were champion?

As soon as Dean drops to the floor outside the cage, Seth shrugs off E, who is massaging his shoulders in an attempt to loosen him up. ("You look too tight," Xavier had said. "And not good tight," added Kofi.) It's exhausting convincing them he's okay to go alone to the bathroom, but they eventually allow him to escape. As soon as he's a safe distance away, he starts asking after Jamie and Joey, receiving shrugs from most and glares from others. After Stardust hisses at him, he gives up and texts Joey, asking where they are and demanding to leave. They used to be his shadows, and now, when he wants them, they're nowhere to be found.

Stephanie's in her office when Seth stops to say goodbye.

"Miss me yet," he says smugly, and the gaze she turns on him sends ice through his veins.

"I'm going to find a way to break Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose," she snaps, voice a whip and he forces himself not recoil. It seems a non-sequitur until he realizes she's upset about Dean's win over Sheamus with Roman's assistance.

Seth assures her. "You will."

What he unwillingly thinks, however, is: You can't. He watched Roman go through hell, put Roman through hell himself, and he never broke.

Dean is different, though. Dean's got cracks large as canyons and Seth knows how easy it is to carve out another. Dean will allow himself to be smashed to pieces, but he won't call it breaking. Neither Stephanie nor anyone else in the Authority or League of Nations can break Dean.

Dean only breaks - truly breaks - for the people he loves. If Roman won't break, Dean won't either.

Seth wonders if Dean would still break for him.

Seth's on the precipice of some realization, still half-formed in his mind but enough to make him nauseous. He doesn't regret anything, but sometimes he wonders if it's possible to unburn bridges - not rebuild what's been destroyed, but somehow just to go back and stop the fire before it starts. Rebuilding something requires acknowledgment of its destruction, though, of your defeat or failure. Seth's never been a failure.

He startles when Stephanie's phone rings. She looks at it buzzing around in circles on her desk like she's thinking about throwing it.

Uncomfortable and needing to escape, Seth bids her goodnight quickly and hobbles away just as she answers the phone with a "Hello, Dad."

Seth texts Jamie and Joey both, telling them to grab his stuff and meet him at the car. He could wait on the curb for them, but he's still trying to avoid people, ready to make a get-away after a weird night.

Of course, his night's about to get weirder. Dean is sitting on the trunk of his rental, prodding at his jaw like he's checking to make sure it's still aligned properly. Seth stops dead in his tracks. He's not sure Dean's seen him in the shadow of the corner, so he's considering turning around before Dean yells, "Aw, come on, Seth. I could hear you clacking all the way through the garage. Don't turn tail on me."

Seth reluctantly emerges, willing Jamie and Joey to show up soon. "What do you want?" He asks, hoping the harsh tone of his voice masks his shock. Dean's the last person he wanted to see.

"Just to say congrats, Mr. Superstar of the Year." The way Dean says it sounds opposite of what Seth expects - not quite genuine, but not entirely hostile either.

Seth isn't sure what to think, so he just says, "Uh. Thanks." He catches himself and quickly amends with, "Who else would they have given it to? I'm still the best, even with - " He cuts himself off because Dean's eyes have traveled down the length of his body and stopped at the brace on his knee.

Seth grips the handholds of his crutches tighter and doesn't even attempt to make out the look on Dean's face, afraid for some reason of what he might see.

Hoping off the car, Dean approaches him slowly. Seth's unsure if it's a deliberate slowness. Dean's match with Sheamus was rough, so he's got to be pretty stiff.

He used to hold icepacks to Dean's sore muscles and joints while Dean tried to squirm away from him on their shared hotel room bed. He'd kiss Dean's scrapes and bruises while Dean complained he'd never needed a mother to kiss him better, though he didn't try very hard to escape Seth's lips on his tender skin. The flood of nostalgia the memories bring mixes terribly with the residual nausea from earlier.

Once he's close enough that he can see Dean does have the shadow of a bruise blooming on his jaw, Dean says, "Nice speech, by the way. All of it bullshit?"

Seth bristles, focusing on Dean's words and not thinking of the faint bruise hidden in his stubble. "Not the part about me taking back my championship."

"No," Dean says, shaking his head, "I know you meant that. What was all that shit about redesigning yourself? Come on, Seth, we all already know you change faces like I change underwear."

Barking out a startled laugh, Seth rolls his eyes and throws back, "What, weekly? And then I only turn myself inside out?"

Dean's mouth is turned up in a weird grin. Seth feels strange and a little dizzy because the insult came easy, but there was no real heat behind it, only a playfulness he hadn't felt in a long time.

"Turning yourself inside out," Dean says, stepping closer, "sounds messy. And painful. I like it."

Seth's mouth is dry. The anger Dean has carried with him since Seth had hit him with that chair is barely there, and Seth is at a loss. He wonders what the catch is, because Dean doesn't forgive easily. It can't be this easy.

Dean's close enough that he can smell an achingly familiar scent of generic hotel soap and clean skin. Dean never bought his own soap, just used whatever cheap stuff the hotel left them in the bathroom and it was something about him that Seth thought he had forgotten. His heart stutters painfully in his chest.

"A weekly facelift is more change than most people have," Dean says, suddenly sounding a little less amiable. "What'll it be this time? You've got the whole 'I'm an asshole who betrays his brothers' look down pretty good. I'd hate to see how you look after reinventing that classic."

"Don't start, Ambrose," Seth says sharply, tensing. It's never as easy as he hopes.

Dean steps closer and twists his fingers in the last of Seth's streaks of blond hair. He's about to jerk away, but Dean's hand in his hair is surprisingly gentle and it doesn't seem like he wants to yank it out. Seth stands still, rooted to the spot not only by his lack of mobility, but because he wants to be. He hasn't had Dean in his space in so long - it's been at least a month - and just the heat of him is exhilarating.

"All that talk of redesigning yourself - bet all you meant was you're losing the blond for good." Dean's voice is low. Seth keeps himself from swaying closer toward him by gripping his crutches for support.

Rolling his eyes, Seth says flippantly, "Don't you worry too much about it, Ambrose. Even if you tried, you ruin everything you touch, even yourself. I wouldn't expect you to know how to better yourself."

He's said things like that in the past and they still come so easily. Dean's mouth falls open slightly, like Seth's just gut-punched him.

"Still the same old Seth," says Dean, words tight with bitter disappointment.

Seth's breath hitches and his guts twist in knots. They're always trying to hurt each other and, for a brief second, he hates it. He wants... he doesn't know what he wants. He wants to go back to the beginning of November, when he was working almost every day and didn't have time to think about anything but his next match and how to keep his title. What Dean Ambrose thought didn't mean anything to him and he certainly didn't care if he hurt him. He never cared, that's what he said. That's what he told himself.

Dean had loved him and Dean had hated him. With the way Dean's bonded to Roman, Seth wonders if he really still has any place in Dean's heart. He doesn't care if Dean slaps him or kisses him now, he just doesn't want Dean to ever stop caring about him.

Seth opens his mouth. He wants to say something, though he's not sure what; his brain's not caught up yet. Then, he hears footsteps.

Jamie's voice calls out, "Sorry we're late, boss. Had to put out some fires." They come around the corner and catch sight of Seth and Dean standing toe-to-toe.

"Hey, back off, Ambrose," Joey warns. Dean frowns and slowly untangles his fingers from Seth's hair as he backs away.

"Don't worry, kids," says Dean, losing the raw edge to his voice instantly and putting on a smarmy mask. "Just congratulating your man here on his win."

"I'm sure," Jamie scoffs.

"I'll just get out your hair now," says Dean, smirking. He saunters off toward the street, whistling a discordant tune.

"You alright, Seth?" Jamie asks as he approaches.

"Yeah, yeah," Seth says, heart-sick and irritated. "Let's just get out here."

* * *

By the time Seth is cleared, it's been over nine months and it feels like it's been nine years. He thinks the trainers were being overly cautious waiting so long to clear him, but he has to admit his knee feels better than he thought it would and he's definitely ready to get back into the ring. Training in the Performance Center the last few months of his sentence to keep off the ring rust has been a nice change of pace, but it's nothing compared to coming back to the cameras and the crowds.

It's the first of August and his return is perfectly timed for the ramp up to SummerSlam. He shows up at Raw to the surprise and delight of the audience, struts down the ramp to the ring like he was never gone, and demands his rematch for the belt he never lost. The crowd chants "Welcome back!" so loudly that Seth has to stop his promo just to allow them time to quiet down. It's good though, because he's holding back tears at the outpouring of support and breaking down on the mic is not the way he wants his triumphant return to go.

Everything is more perfect than he could imagine, except for the identity of man holding his title. Smiling widely across the ring from him is the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Dean Ambrose.

Roman lost the title at the Royal Rumble to Jack Swagger, of all people. Not that Swagger isn't a world class athlete, but no one expected him to win. The name at the forefront of everyone's mind was "Roman Reigns," despite the seemingly insurmountable odds. Seth, of course, was smart enough to realize that the odds really were hopelessly stacked, though he was just as surprised as everyone else to see Roman eliminated by Kevin Owens - who had taken the Intercontinental Title back from Dean earlier in the night - effectively ending Roman's time as WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

No one thought Swagger could hang on to the championship for long, not with the Authority, the League of Nations, and Roman - with Dean and the Usos as support - all aiming for the target on his back. But Swagger found himself aided by the Social Outcasts, who claimed him as one of their own. Swagger seemed bemused by the way the unorganized group latched on to him (literally, as they all crowded around him and each clung to a gangly limb after every victory they achieved), but he didn't turn away the help, especially since Curtis Axel was giving Dean Ambrose a run for his money in terms of frenzied intensity and the ability to take a beating and keep on getting up. There's something to be said for being let off your chain, as Axel had put it.

Despite everyone's best efforts to put him down, Dean ended up qualifying to take on Swagger in the main event of Wrestlemania. The Authority pulled some dastardly moves trying to keep both Dean and Roman out the title picture, including dragging out their new favorite game so many times that even Seth was sick of it. Dean and Roman both ran a gauntlet of handicap matches with almost every man on the main roster, and the Authority still couldn't keep them down. When Dean finally pinned Rusev in the last qualifying match, Roman ran out to the ring and hugged him enthusiastically. Seth had forced himself to watch that celebration, feeling sick the entire time.

Dean beat Swagger at Wrestlemania and then somehow managed to retain the belt for several months.

Now, Seth's finally standing there with him cutting a promo that consists of lines like, "I beat you last year for my title, and I'll do it again."

He stares at Dean and tries not to let his eyes drift down to the belt around his waist, white-knuckling the mic so hard his fingers hurt. Dean scrunches his face up in a way Seth knows to mean "just try me."

Seth continues, "I came back better, stronger, faster, and I'll have you pinned to the mat at SummerSlam before you even hear the bell ring."

Dean laughs. "Okay, Six Million Dollar Man, we get it. But, why wait 'til SummerSlam?" He steps back and unstraps the belt from around his waist with one hand. The crowd roars at the implication and Dean continues with, "If you're so ready, let's go right now."

They both drop their mics with a thump that echoes through the arena. Seth starts to pull his shirt off, but stops just at his ribs and lowers the hem slowly with a smirk. Sliding gracefully out of the ring under the bottom rope, he saunters back up the ramp to the sound of thunderous booing.

He doesn't look back at Dean at all. He can't. He can't see the way he's probably holding his arms out in challenge, or the way his face is probably screwed up in disappointment. If he looks back, he might just turn around and tell the ref to ring the bell.

Now that he's made it to the other side of his absence, nine long months of rumination still fresh, Seth can admit that he missed Dean. Well, not Dean. He definitely didn't miss Dean. He missed the how right it felt when he was in the ring with him. Seth missed being in the ring with someone, period, but being in the ring with Dean is... well, it doesn't seem to matter if they're brothers or enemies, Seth feels attuned to him, connected to him in a way he's felt with no other person. That's what he misses.

But, his instructions from Stephanie and Hunter are to leave people wanting in order to garner hype for SummerSlam. He still kind of hates himself for walking away.

He has a match with Roman later that night and it's everything he hoped his match at Survivor Series would have been - including getting the pin. Dean is on commentary, title slung over his shoulder, and Seth has to concentrate very hard on not getting distracted by him, especially by the way Dean is watching Roman closely and half-jumping out of his seat every time there's a near fall.

When Seth finally gets the pin, he leaps up and climbs the ropes, posing dramatically on the top turnbuckle as his heart hammers wildly in his chest. He forgets for just a second that this wasn't a title match, that he doesn't have the title and neither does Roman. Reality comes crashing back down around him when Dean throws off his headset and climbs into the ring, title slung haphazardly over his shoulder.

He thinks at first Dean's coming to try and defend Roman's honor by finishing Seth off, but, instead, Dean offers his hand to Roman and pulls him up into a back-pounding, one-armed hug.

Seth jumps off the turnbuckle and stands there, watching them stand too close together, talking about something Seth strains to hear. Dean looks serious and Roman rubs his hand through Dean's hair affectionately. Seth's about to walk out of the ring in disgust when Roman turns to him.

There's no competitive staring like the last time they met each other's eyes way back in November. Roman just says "Good match," and extends his hand with only a slight tremor of hesitation. There's no question it was a good match. Seth won; of course it was good. No, the question lies in whether Seth will accept Roman's hand extended in peace.

He glances at Roman's outstretched hand briefly, and his eyes slide back up not just to Roman's face, but Dean standing beside him, title slung over his shoulder.

He stares so long that, if the frantic beating of his heart weren't the only sound in his ears, he'd hear the nervous rustle of the crowd and scattered, unorganized chants of "Shield! Shield!" and "Yes! Yes!" He stares so long that he sees the flicker of something that looks like hope in Dean's eyes.

For the second time that night, he turns and walks out of the ring. The walk up the ramp is the longest it's ever been and he blames the crowd's palpable disappointment for the way his heart sinks.

Later, Joey says, "You were thinking about it," with an air of knowing that cuts Seth a little too close.

Startled, Seth blurts out, "Are you kidding? I just wanted them to think I was thinking about it." He forces a smug smile.

Joey fixes him with a frown. "It's been a while since you've seen them face to face. Bad feelings fade easier than good ones."

"Trust me," adds Jamie, "if you ever had an ounce of love for them, I bet it was pretty hard to walk away. I mean, remember when we had our little argument? I couldn't wait to forgive you."

He shrugs and claps Seth on the shoulder. "Reigns and Ambrose are probably just hoping to get back in the good graces of our one true champ, though." He nudges Joey with an elbow.

"Yeah, probably," agrees Joey, half-heartedly.

Seth shakes his head, irritated. He shifts gears to dissuade them from talk of Dean and Roman. "Come on guys, forget about them. How about how I pinned Reigns right in the middle of the ring! You saw the move I did when I ducked out of the way of that spear?"

On Thursday after SmackDown, Stephanie tells him he's teaming with Kevin Owens against Ambrose and Reigns in the main event on Raw.

"Just to give the people a little taste," she says sharply. "Try to keep yourself out of the ring when Ambrose is in. Let Owens do most of the work. Give the viewers something to look forward to at SummerSlam."

"I know how to make a main event," he says, petulant. He doesn't mind teaming with Owens. At least he knows how to keep his hands to himself, unlike Rusev and Sheamus who hugged Seth and mussed his hair aggressively after winning their match earlier in the night.

He's just not ready to meet Dean or Roman in the ring again yet.

The booking weighs on him all weekend. He can't stop thinking about that glimmer of hope in Dean's eye.

* * *

Raw is in San Deigo and all morning Owens texts Seth pictures of him with animals at the zoo. It's not like he and Owens are really great friends, so he's not sure why he's suddenly on the receiving end of endless texts about how Owens got to bottle feed a lion cub. It's only slightly less annoying than the League of Nations members' penchant for physical affection.

That evening, Seth is backstage loitering around Stephanie's office. Just in case she needs him. It's not like he's trying to avoid anyone or anything.

"Hey, buddy," Owens says, slapping him on the back.

Seth jumps and stifles a yelp.

Chuckling, Owens asks, "What's got you on edge?" It's an innocent question that doesn't sound innocent coming from his mouth.

"Nothing." He tries not to sound as uneasy as he feels. Kevin's raised brows tell him he didn't succeed.

He stalks off, telling Owens he'll see him in the ring later. He finds a dark corner, not to hide in, but to concentrate on tweeting about how he's going to destroy Dean and Roman single-handedly.

Dean's hopeful look is stuck on loop in his mind.

The match starts out great. Owens isn't much of a team player, but they've always worked fairly well together. Per Stephanie's orders, Seth tags himself out every time Dean tags himself in, much to the frustration of the crowd and Dean himself. Dean is getting more and more agitated by the fact that they haven't so much as touched each other yet. Seth is antsy too, hopping up and down on the apron and trying not to glance over at Dean, who is doing much the same.

Everything is going to plan. Then, Roman, after tagging in Dean, crosses the ring quickly and takes Owens down, knocking him off the ring apron where he thumps hard on floor below. Seth never got a chance to tag him and he's left alone in the ring with Dean.

They are chest to chest instantly. Seth pushes Dean back roughly, breathing harder than he should be because it feels like Dean has stolen the breath from his lungs. Dean surges forward and fists his hand in Seth's hair, using his grip not to wrench Seth's head painfully back, but to pull him forward until their foreheads are just barely touching.

"You're still the same asshole. You didn't change at all," he says, words sounding like they'd scraped his throat raw. Despite the way his body sings and begs for him to pull Dean closer, he just clutches at the neck of Dean's shirt, almost ripping it.

"What do you want?" Seth asks desperately, unsure if he is asking the question of Dean or himself.

Dean hauls back and slaps Seth across the cheek. Seth feels the sting of both Dean's words and his hand and retaliates the only way he knows how, attacking with a flurry of punches. He corners Dean against the turnbuckles and doesn't let up even after the ref disqualifies him.

It takes Owens, Reigns and Stephanie's threats from the top of the ramp that Seth won't get his match at SummerSlam if he keeps going to separate them.

He's hinging everything on that match at SummerSlam; it'll be his true comeback because he'll become champion again. Dean will be a loser while Seth stands tall, just as it should be.

He doesn't want anything but his championship back.

* * *

The ref counts "one, two, three" and it's over. Dean gets the pin. Dean retains the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and Seth lays dazed and exhausted in the ring, unable to believe that he couldn't gain back his title. Pressing his fists to his eyes, he tries to hold back tears and fails, feeling them mingle with the sweat on his face. This was supposed to be the beginning of his comeback as champion, as the future of the company, and now he's neither. He's just some past champion who can't win a match when it really counts.

The crowd is going wild for Dean and Seth tries to drown himself in the sound. With his eyes closed, he can faintly imagine they're cheering just for him.

When he opens his eyes, Dean is standing over him. If he were in Dean's position he'd be gloating. He'd leave Dean broken in the middle of the ring and hold up the belt at the top of the ramp in triumph. But, Dean's not grinning or celebrating obnoxiously; he's got that look in his eye again - the one that looks half-hopeful and half-hesitant, like he wants to reach out but he's afraid of being bitten.

And, there is the culmination of that sickening realization from so many months ago, niggling the back of his mind all this time like the steady tick of a bomb. It's suddenly exploded messily and painfully and he only hopes a camera isn't trained on his face because he doesn't want everyone to see what it looks like when Seth Rollins realizes he's the biggest loser in the company.

He never had to sacrifice his brothers for the championship, never had to smash Dean to pieces over and over. He did it because he wanted to, because making Dean and Roman hurt made him feel powerful. Now, he's sick with how weak he is. He wishes he could go back to the day he made the decision to take Hunter's hand, wishes his gut twisted, hot and uncomfortable, just as it is now. Maybe then he would've thought twice about hurting the people he loved.

Seth's breaking here, snapping under the weight of too many regrets and bad decisions.

Dean holds out his hand.

"Seth," he says, and he sounds as weak as Seth is, like he's breaking too.

Seth takes his hand, warm and sweaty, and he clings tight as Dean pulls him to his feet. Where Seth was drowning in the sound of the crowd earlier, now he can hear nothing but his own quick breaths as he and Dean meet each other's eyes. Their hands are still clasped together.

Dean's bicep flexes minutely and Seth knows he's going to be pulled into a hug a second before it happens. Seth stumbles forward into Dean's embrace and stays.

Kissing Seth on the top of his head, Dean brings their foreheads together. They are nose to nose, breathing each other's air, and Seth is at home in Dean's arms.

He can't unburn the bridges he razed on his way to the top, but he can redesign them to be better, stronger. They can rebuild what they had. Seth isn't a failure, and if Dean and Roman can make it work, then, damn it, he can too.

"Welcome back," Dean says, hugging Seth tighter against him.

This time Seth leans into him.


End file.
